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And that is time! Jabber will have the judging finished for this round in a week!
Since there are 7 entries, in the first round, the top four scoring constants overall will advance, and the bottom three thus will be eliminated.
In the second and third rounds, the tournament will proceed as single elimination matches between pairs of the remaining contestants, with the lowest scoring contestant being eliminated.

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Creativity/Originality: 11/15
I love your effects in particular, bb, because they’re always designed with an eye on the competitive game in whatever format you’re faking. And XY has been a strength of yours for some time –– it’s nice to see a blast from the past. Even if it’s that particular era. Call for Reinforcements provides a nice setup attack while Bubble Buster combined with the Ancient Trait can do damage and even take a Knock Out in a pinch. The effects might not be gamebreakingly creative, but I like ‘em.

Wording: 15/15
- The wording for the Ancient Trait bothers me a bit because it reads like an attack rather than a passive effect, but I guess it wouldn’t be the first Ancient Trait to have slightly awkward wording. I can’t find a better wording, so not docking.

Fonts and Placement: 9/10
- Your Pokédex text there is gray rather than black. [-1 point]

Believability/Playability: 4/5
As much as I like Bubble Buster, there are very few situations in a latter-XY meta where you’d ever actually use it. The Ancient Trait likewise ends up being almost superfluous. It’s definitely a believable card, but the fact that its playability comes almost entirely from one attack, I’m docking a cautious point here.

Aesthetics: 5/5
Yep. You do Ancient Traits well. The art is well manipulated and it ties in nicely to the blank. Really feels like a card right out of one of the AT sets. I was a little iffy on the holosheet for an evolving Basic, but you cleverly made it a promo rather than any particular rarity, so that’s that choice justified.

Final Notes:
Wording and Aesthetics are great; fonts almost perfect. The effects are good for what they are. Overall a solid card. I’ll be looking forward to more from you. ^.^

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
I like your take on Megas in the SM era, even if it ends up being a LV.X that happens not to share the name of its previous form. Both effects are original and in keeping with thematic tie-ins –– particularly evident in the names. The only thing is that they inconvenience your opponent in two completely different ways, with the result that they just feel kinda … tacked on. There’s very little synergy, if any, between them.

Wording: 15/15
- Looks good! Nice use of references.

Fonts and Placement: 6/10
- Fonts look fine, but placement is basically eyeballed. There’s much too much space between attack names and attack text, the numerals don’t align with the attack name or with the right-hand edge of the text, and the first line of the Ability reaches weirdly far off to the right. [-4 points] as a blanket dock for eyeballed placements.

Believability/Playability: 3/5
Destruction Wave is a bit concerning, given that any straight-up Energy discard effects tend to be very limited in their scope. For example, Umbreon-GX’s entire GX attack just discards two of them. To be able to repeatedly discard three from any of your opponent’s Pokémon, with 140 damage tacked onto it, is a lot. Point docked for that, and another because I don’t see any reason to allow the player to use attacks from the Magikarp under Mega Gyarados.

Aesthetics: 4/5
I like the incorporation of the art, and the holosheet (galaxy foil <3), but I disagree with letting the name overlap the fin, and the decision not to reuse the holosheet anywhere else on the card. It just … doesn’t seem flashy enough for SUM-on. Still, the adaptation of the blank and use of the art shows skill. ^.^

Final Notes:
I like the Mega mechanic, but I think you need to develop it a bit more. The card seems a little all-over-the-place.

Creativity/Originality: 9/15
The Classic era is a really interesting one to fake because it lets you do a whole bunch of things that later eras wouldn’t dream of. I like these effects, but they’re just kinda … bland? Like it moderately accelerates Energy and has a snipe effect, and there’s some cool synergy being explored, but there’s nothing that really blows me away in terms of creativity for the effects. The attack is also very similar to that of the Vaporeon card from Jungle.

Wording: 13/15
- Almost entirely on point, so props for that, especially considering it’s Classic-era. The one thing I see is that Tide Arrow has a [W] Energy in its attack cost, so the attack should do 20+ and have the “but not used to pay for this attack’s Energy cost” clause. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement: 4/10
- The “Pokémon Power: Stormy Evolution” text should be bigger than the rest of the text. [-1 point]
- The text for the Pokémon Power is noticeably darker than that of the attack, and also seems stretched vertically. Overall the text should be darker –– not bold, but not light either. [-3 points]
- Energy symbols in the text should have the actual type orb, not just the water-droplet icon. [-2 points]

Believability/Playability: 3/5
Snipe is very rare in the Classic era, especially snipe as powerful as this. Tide Arrow has neither a cap nor a distinction between Energy for the attack cost and Energy to boost damage. Look at Vaporeon JU –– it has both, with the result that you have to have 5 Energy just to do 50 damage. Granted, that’s underpowered even by Classic standard, but on a card that allows you to do that damage to the Bench it would be completely justified.

Aesthetics: 4/5
I really like the Classic aesthetic, especially with the stars holofoil –– but I think the refractor foil ruins it somewhat, at least for me. I do love your art, though.

Final Notes:
Nice delving into a rarely-faked era! There’s a lot of things I love about the card, but it also unfortunately has a few shortcomings.

Creativity/Originality: 12/15
Hmm, okay. I see what you’re trying to do there with the synergy around Energy cycling, and it seems solid. You’ve got a way to do a bunch of damage, a way to (sort of) protect, and a way to rinse and repeat, and it all revolves around a central gimmick. It just feels a bit like it’s missing something … although I like where you’re coming from, none of the effects are truly what I’d call original. This score reflects that –– the card has solid ideas interwoven to make a sort of jack-of-all-trades, but doesn’t have any exciting new effect in particular.

Wording: 12/15
- Counter Shield needs the “This power can’t be used if Empoleon PC is affected by a Special Condition” clause, as per all Poké-Powers that can be activated indefinitely from the Active spot. [-2 points]
- “Basic Energy” -> “basic Energy” [-1 point]

Fonts and Placement: 10/10
- Looks fine. Would recommend shifting the promo number over to the right to be closer to the black star symbol, but I’m not gonna dock for it.

Believability/Playability: 4/5
Overall I think it’s certainly a believable card. I don’t have too many concerns in this category. The only one for me is that Counter Shield is has only one real use in any DPPt metagame, and that’s as a shield against Gengar AR’s Shadow Room. This wouldn’t really be a problem except that if you wanted to protect it from that one attack, you could’ve just not given it a Poké-Power at all, since Gengar would rather target Pokémon with Poké-Powers for the full effect. So the power seems slightly useless, and I’m docking a cautious point for that. On the whole it seems a believable Pokémon-SP, though.

Aesthetics: 3/5
I like the holosheeting and integration of the female player character from DP, but where the aesthetics begin to fall apart for me is the use of the Empoleon art from Pokkén. It’s just too over-realistic to work on a DPPt-era card. Pokémon’s CGI wasn’t that good back then.

Final Notes:
Nice delving into a rarely-faked era! There’s a lot of things I love about the card, but it also unfortunately has a few shortcomings.

Creativity/Originality: 8/15
There’s honestly not a lot to be said about the effects of this card. It strikes me as weird to give it only one non-GX attack, especially because Pokémon-GX give you such room for creativity. But Muddy Water is a very basic swing-and-recoil attack, and while there’s a bit of originality in Marsh Stomp (clever name btw), it’s not really enough to garner a higher score than this. :/

Wording: 12/15
- “discarded in this way” -> “you discarded in this way” [-1 point]
- The GX attack clause is “You can’t use more than 1 GX attack in a game”. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement: 0/10
- The only accurate fonts on this card are the numerals, which come from a symbolsheet, and the text that’s already part of the blank. Placements are also eyeballed. I’ve said this plenty of times in your judging before, but I still highly recommend checking out some of the font guide resources we’ve got on the ‘beach. Take a look in the Faking Resources and Help Thread. ^.^

Believability/Playability: 2/5
There are quite a few balancing issues –– not that it’s overpowered, but that it’s underpowered. 130 with such a severe drawback isn’t nearly enough damage for a Stage 2 with a multi-type attack cost. And Marsh Stomp both mills and does damage, but again it’s not nearly enough for the attack cost.

Aesthetics: 2/5
I do still really like your aesthetic style, but I’m not certain it’s right for a GX. They’re making a definite step away from 3D models with the introduction of Tag Teams, so it’s not that. It’s primarily the lack of shading, I think, that differentiates your art (which is still very good on cards!) from the typical GX art we see.

Final Notes:
Not sure if it was timing issues or what, but the card feels … unfinished. I’d suggest taking a look into fonts and placement to boost your score in the future.

Creativity/Originality: 13/15
I really like the synergy between Alluring Bioluminescence and Neon Spectacle. Locking a Pokémon in the Active spot is something reminiscent of older eras, DPPt in particular, and lucky for you I’m a sucker for older eras. Drawing inspiration from a mechanic that’s less used in the current era is an interesting twist. The other thing that’s significantly boosting this score is the GX attack, which is a very clever inclusion and is excellent in its originality.

Fonts and Placement: 8/10
- The GX attack text should be blue, not black. [-2 point]
- I thought that “Alluring Bioluminescence” overlapping the numerals on the x-axis was a little questionable, but the only reference we’ve actually got for that afaik is Raichu MT, which does have the overlapping. So you’re good there.

Believability/Playability: 4/5
The balancing on this card is actually in a really weird spot. The free gust effect, plus free retreat, is almost overpowered, but only when paired with another Pokémon. Neon Spectacle, on the other hand, seems underpowered on account of the flip. There’s little reason to ever use the card for anything other the Ability (and probably the GX attack in certain scenarios), and the power imbalance is concerning enough to warrant one docked point here.

Aesthetics: 4/5
Nice! Your art style isn’t totally in keeping with typical GX styles, but I think with a bit of refinement it could work. The holosheets could definitely use work; I’d suggest turning the effects way up and just putting them mostly behind Lumineon.

Final Notes:
Definitely a creative card, but there are a few issues here and there –– I’d definitely suggest, above all else, to keep a closer eye on wording.

Creativity/Originality: 14/15
This is actually amazing in that it manages to be both creative in the use and tying-in of different effects and something I could totally see in the current format. More on that in Believability, though. It’s just that all in one card, you’ve managed to bring together a very clear strategy for an entire archetype. That ain’t easy to do.

Fonts and Placement: 10/10
- Looks fine. I question the use of smaller numerals for the HP over the standard bigger ones for Pokémon-GX, but I’ll chalk it up to “your blank, your rules”.

Believability/Playability: 5/5
It’s totally believable, and well balanced too, imo. You could probably get away with 230 or 240 HP as it’s Empoleon, but the lower number also makes sense in accordance with its higher potential attack power. I’d be quite comfortable with this as a card in the current format.

Aesthetics: 4/5
I like the half-art GX style –– and ik you do too lol –– but I think I may be biased toward your old Leafeon. There seems to be something missing from this one, when you compare the two. Possibly it’s all the glowballs and effects going around the border and whatnot. The effects on this one seem a bit hasty. Still very good, though.

Final Notes:
Brilliant concept. This is one of the highest scores I’ve ever given. ^.^

Total: 47/50

Which means that the contestants advancing are:

Nyan, whose Elite Empoleon-GX scored 47/50 points, the top score of the group!

Member

I don't understand the -2 points in the third part of the Wording (since it's an attack and the opponent's Pokémon is defending it), but okay.

Also, my art style is very different from the ones used in the GX cards. I understand that I could've used the holofoils better (as I said when I posted it), but I would never get the same results as the others, since they use rendered arts from the official media.

I'll keep a close eye to the Wording next time (I got lost when I saw the massive amount of text, maybe that's why I let those mistakes pass e.e), thanks for the judging!

Member

I don't understand the -2 points in the third part of the Wording (since it's an attack and the opponent's Pokémon is defending it), but okay.

Click to expand...

Wow, you're totally right. That's my mistake; I made an assumption I shouldn't've made and didn't bother checking for a reference. You shouldn't have lost those 2 points and your score should be 39, same as steffenka's.

@Gabs Kazumi@steffenka I apologize to both of you for not checking my own scoring before it was posted. In the interest of putting exactly four people through to the next round (b/c of how NP's planned bracket works), we'll do a tiebreak challenge for the two of you as soon as possible.

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Round 1 Tiebreaker
For this tiebreaker, you will need to create a text-based card that functions as a complement to the card you already made for Round 1. These cards will then be scored on the text-based rubric, and the person with the higher score will advance to Round 2.
You have just over 5 days, or until 12:00 PM EST on Saturday, March 16th, to complete this card.
Good luck!

Decided to go for Tapu Fini, since I felt it would be fitting with the "field"-based attacks and Ability I had going with Mega Gyarados. The Ability, is supposed to assist Gyarados' attack, though in order for it not be "Energy Discard City", I added the 2 coin flip onto it so that it wouldn't make Gyarados way too good. With the attack, you can get any Pokémon from your opponent's bench into their active position, after which (with Gyarados in play) it would be harder for them to switch out. Finally, the GX attack is a way of getting Mega Gyarados onto the field, without having to Evolve and Mega Evolve from Magikarp and Gyarados.

Member

I didn't thought that we would have a tiebreak in this tournament

Well, here's my entry, I hope you like it

Finneon - [W] - 60 HP
Basic Pokémon

Ability - Stage Assistant
Once during your turn, after you flip a coin for a Neon Spectacle attack, you may shuffle this Pokémon and all cards attached to it in your deck. If you do, your Neon Spectacle attack does 30 more damage (before applying Weakness and Resistance), and count the coin flip as heads.

[W][W] Rookie Presentation 20+
This attack does 10 more damage for each Finneon in your Bench.

Weakness: [L] (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: [C]
Flavour Text: It lures in prey with its shining tail fins. It stays near the surface during the day and moves to the depths when night falls.

With this card, my Lumineon GX's Neon Spectacle shines a bit brighter. With a bonus damage and a way to fix the results of the coin flip, this card was designed to, as the Ability says, be a Stage Assistant to the main card.

I tried to check references for the text, but I didn't found any besides Fliptini (which has a similar effect). I hope it's okay

Good luck to @steffenka! And sorry for any trouble I may have caused XD

Also, I'd like to apologize for my last reply, I read it again and maybe it sounded rude (?)

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
The synergy is certainly apparent here. Mysterious Fog is probably my favorite part of the card, just because it’s an effect we’ve never seen before. It’s a shame it’d so rarely come into play given the odds on it, but I do like the effect. Unfortunately, there’s less to be said for Carrying Stream and Ocean Empowerment –– the former being a pretty generic effect in and of itself, and the latter being very similar to Dragonite-GX’s GX attack.

Wording: 8.5/15
- “an attack” -> “the effect of an attack” [-1 point]
- Need the “yours or your opponent’s” clarifying text for the Ability. [-2 points]
- “if both are” -> “if both of them are” [-1 point]
- The last clause of the Ability strikes me as really weird because it tells you, the user of the Ability, to do something that could apply to you or your opponent. There aren’t any effects like this one in recent memory, but in this instance I would draw from the actual Stadium rule itself, like so: “that Stadium card stays in play instead of being discarded”. [-2 points]
- Don’t need that comma in the GX attack. [-0.5 point]

Believability/Playability: 9/15
The card suffers a bit from Playability. I like what you were going with for the individual effects synergizing with individual effects on Gyarados, but the card strikes a strange balance between underpowered and barely beneficial (the Ability) and overpowered (the GX attack –– see Dragonite’s GX attack, on a Stage 2, for comparison). There’s also an aspect of questionable Believability with the Ability being allowed to stack –– if you really really really want to keep that Stadium card in play, you can Bench four Tapu Fini and flip for it four times.

Final Notes:
The synergy is evident, but the effects are in a weird place balance-wise.

Ability - Stage Assistant
Once during your turn, after you flip a coin for a Neon Spectacle attack, you may shuffle this Pokémon and all cards attached to it in your deck. If you do, your Neon Spectacle attack does 30 more damage (before applying Weakness and Resistance), and count the coin flip as heads.

[W][W] Rookie Presentation 20+
This attack does 10 more damage for each Finneon in your Bench.

Weakness: [L] (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: [C]
Flavour Text: It lures in prey with its shining tail fins. It stays near the surface during the day and moves to the depths when night falls.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
Stage Assistant works as a perfect foil to Neon Spectacle, removing the flippy element that might’ve made it unplayable and increasing the damage output to competitive levels to boot. It sort of reminds me of the things PCL is trying to do with Wishiwashi, only better executed. The synergy there is very well done. Rookie Presentation is nothing special, but the combo with the Ability is enough to carry you on this score.

Believability/Playability: 14/15
Despite the effect for the Ability being really unique, I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t be printed as an actual card alongside that Lumineon-GX. The balancing is all on point, and it actually functions as quite a boon to the Lumineon. -1 Point for missing ‘dex info.

Final Notes:
A well-thought-out combo with the Lumineon from the previous round. My only complaint aside from the wording is that Rookie Presentation is a less exciting part of the card.

Total: 41/50

Which means that Gabs Kazumi, whose Fantastic Finneon scored 41/50 points, has won the tiebreaker and is advancing to Round 2!
Sorry, steffenka, but that means that you have been eliminated.

Member

Round 2​

The theme for the second round is No Abilities! This will work exactly as it seems. For this round, your card will need to be free of any form of non-attack effects, which includes (but is not limited to) Abilities, Poké-Powers, Poké-Bodies, Pokémon Powers, Ancient Traits, and held items. As always, be creative!

You have just over three weeks, or until Sunday, April 7th, at 12:00 PM EST to submit your cards for this round (the rest of the schedule in the OP has also been updated to reflect the tiebreaker). Good luck!

Advanced MemberMember

Here's my entry! Whipped up the art for this last night after having the spoilers done for weeks. I'm pretty happy with the, uh, extended version of the art, but unfortunately I had to crop in for consistency's sake, so it's less pretty on here. Design wise, I decided to develop a combination that rewards players who continue to use Keldeo post-setup, as setup focused cards tend to become useless after their preferred phase. I reckon the synergy solves that problem effectively!